Multi-rate capabilities are increasingly becoming a necessity for wireless data networks. For example, to be competitive and allow a flexible sales strategy, network service providers may need to be able to offer customers different data rates at different prices.
Additionally, as technology advances, manufacturers and service providers are able to offer customers new generations of improved receiving equipment at regular intervals. This leads to a situation wherein some network users may have the newest equipment with the highest data reception rate capabilities, while others who may be unwilling to undertake the cost of an upgrade may have older equipment with lower data reception rate capabilities.
More generally, for various reasons, wireless networks of the future will tend to become increasingly heterogeneous in terms of the processing capabilities of users' receiving equipment.
Known data transmission methods in wireless networks either do not allow for a disparity in data reception rate capabilities among users, or typically do not efficiently handle such a disparity if it does exist. Rather, such data transmission methods may waste bandwidth in that data transmission rates must accommodate the user with the slowest equipment.
In view of the foregoing, a method and system are needed for efficiently handling data transmission in a wireless network wherein network users have different data reception rate capabilities.